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Flybe drops Heathrow to Leeds Bradford for Newquay, launches nine new routes

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Flybe has been finalising its Winter schedules, set to start on 30th October and run until the end of March 2023.

There are a number of changes, with the launch of 9 new routes according to AeroRoutes:

  • Belfast City – Edinburgh, starts 15th December, 13 weekly flights
  • Birmingham – Aberdeen, starts 9th February, daily flights
  • Birmingham – Edinburgh, starts 24th November, more than triple daily
Flybe view
  • Birmingham – Glasgow, starts 24th November, 19 weekly flights
  • London Heathrow – Newquay starts 30th October, 12 weekly flights
  • Manchester – Newquay, starts 30th October, daily flights
  • Southampton – Edinburgh, starts 2nd March, daily flights
  • Southampton – Glasgow, starts 2nd March, daily flights
  • Southampton – Manchester, starts 2nd March, 12 weekly flights

However, the most interesting news is that ….

Flybe drops Heathrow to Leeds Bradford in favour of Newquay

Flybe has decided to withdraw its direct flights from Heathrow to Leeds Bradford and replace them with direct flights to Newquay.

In a sign of just how poor yields were, the change is being made over the Winter season – starting on 30th October – which isn’t exactly peak season for travel to Cornwall.

The flights will be double daily Monday to Friday, and will be joined by a daily link from Newquay to Manchester. The flight times are as follows:

  • BE801 departs Newquay at 06:35 and lands in Heathrow at 08:00
  • BE802 departs Heathrow at 08:45 and arrives in Newquay at 10:15
  • BE807 departs Newquay at 18:35 and lands in Heathrow at 20:00
  • BE808 departs Heathrow at 20:45 and arrives in Newquay at 22:10

The timings appear to be optimised for commuters heading from Cornwall to London. Flights departing Heathrow start at £54.99 whilst flights from Newquay are £39.99 – likely due to the cheaper costs of operating from Newquay.

Note that these flights are not being underwritten by the government under the public service obligation (PSO). The local authority in Cornwall was willing to subsidise flights to London by £125,000 per month, year round, to ensure air connectivity. This contract was picked up by British Airways and more recently Eastern Airways (flying from Gatwick) since the old Flybe went bust in 2020.

Flybe seat closeup

Flybe is the third airline to try services between London and Leeds Bradford in recent years and follows in the well-worn footsteps of bmi and British Airways.

In theory, it should have been easier for Flybe to make a go of it compared to British Airways thanks to its smaller aircraft. With the train clocking in at just over two hours to Leeds, however, it made little sense given the transfer time from Heathrow into London. Connecting from Flybe to a long haul flight was also difficult due to lack of through-ticketing.

Whilst making money from Newquay looks hard, it is possible that Flybe is being paid by a third airline to slot-sit, to stop the Heathrow slots being forfeited before their original owner can resume their full pre-pandemic service. This would effectively subsidise the service in a similar way to Eastern’s PSO agreement.

Regardless, it does seem very bizarre that Winter flights to Newquay appear to be the most profitable option for Flybe.

Tickets are now on sale on the Flybe website here. You can read our review of Flybe’s inaugural flight here.

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Comments (42)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • tony says:
    24 Aug24 August 04:53

    There’s something wrong with the data. Flybe are double daily BHX-EDI right now and checking random dates in January shows the same. So no new route and no additional rotations???

    • Rhys says:
      24 Aug24 August 08:20

      Wording on AeroRoutes was vague – I wonder if they included new routes *for the winter season* which could include routes that were originally summer-only?

  • Nick says:
    24 Aug24 August 05:22

    @Rhys your timings show a 25-minute flight from Cornwall to London… it’s not Concorde!

  • Marsha Millar says:
    24 Aug24 August 05:28

    I for one will be very pleased to see this come back, shame it isn’t earlier in the year.

  • pauldb says:
    24 Aug24 August 06:27

    Interesting map. Belfast appears to be closer the Scotland, and Birming khan is east of LHR?

  • Mike Hunt says:
    24 Aug24 August 07:02

    Dropping the Leeds Bradford to Heathrow flight route is disappointing and not really in line with the goal of levelling up

    • G says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:20

      Or the fact Flybe doesn’t fly to or from Exeter anymore…

      I miss Flybe’s codeshares where you could
      fly from Devon to Amsterdam or Paris.

    • Andrew J says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:20

      Flybe’s goal?

    • Thegasman says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:21

      It’s no use to anyone at the moment though. If travelling to central london then the train is far quicker door to door & it’s equally pointless for anyone connecting to another flight at LHR due to the lack of through ticketing.

      It’s not even that useful for anyone heading to M4 corridor thanks to LHR’s rubbish westbound transport connections.

      • G says:
        24 Aug24 August 07:24

        It isn’t a problem limited to LHR though. Going west/east is much harder in the UK than north/south.

        That said, LHR has direct connections to Paddington and the west country? Not to mention other GWR stations like Reading or Slough.

        • Londonsteve says:
          24 Aug24 August 11:07

          Even less point flying to LHR if your destination is on the Paddington to Bristol Great Western line. A direct train from Cornwall will be considerably quicker and more comfortable to somewhere like Swindon or Reading. Unless someone literally needs to go to an address a short bus ride from Heathrow Central, in which case the plane might be the preferred option, I struggle to see much rationale in this route with no interline agreements in place. Having said that, I can imagine some people would still prefer to arrive directly at Heathrow and self-transfer, compared to a long train journey followed by a second connection. They run the risk of delays and cancellations in either case and they might experience greater understanding from their airline if they were delayed due to a FlyBe flight rather than GWR.

    • Ian says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:38

      Yes, and Rhys’ London-centric comment about the time taken to get to Heathrow etc assumes all passengers come from central London. Those of us who live west of Heathrow found it quicker than trailing into London to get the train.

      • Rhys says:
        24 Aug24 August 08:22

        Clearly there aren’t enough of you west of London to make the route work 🙂

        • Rich says:
          24 Aug24 August 08:53

          Exactly Rhys. There is a very good train service to Leeds from out here in the Wild West too, you don’t have to travel via London.

    • Brian78 says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:57

      Levelling up isn’t a thing. It’s a sound bite with no substance and nothing to do with Flybe

      • Brian78 says:
        24 Aug24 August 08:17

        If this imaginary “levelling up” actually happens then people wouldn’t necessarily need to come from Leeds to London anyway.

      • Rob says:
        24 Aug24 August 08:31

        Pretty much everything new and shiny in the North for the last 30 years was funded by EU structural fund money, not central Government …..

        • Rich says:
          24 Aug24 August 08:51

          Sure but where did the EU get the money from Rob? Remember that the UK was a net contributor to EU funds, but the cash just got recycled back to us, less the cost of the bureaucracy of course.

          • Rob says:
            24 Aug24 August 08:58

            True. But now the money isn’t going to the regions at all, is it? Good luck with those new rail lines etc.

          • G says:
            24 Aug24 August 20:10

            As Sir Humphrey would say, the bureaucracy was a consequence of the internationalism.

            Then again… the economies of scale that being a member state afforded us. Blue passports, nostalgia and 70s inflation anyone?

        • Londonsteve says:
          24 Aug24 August 11:12

          Hear hear. Without the EU taking it from Westminster and awarding it to deprived regions in the UK to begin with, UK central government would have never made the investment. My view is that Brussels was more benevolent towards the deprived in the UK than any UK government in post-war history, other than perhaps during the Blair years. Let’s also not forget that there were much greater net contributors to EU funds whose regions might have been considerably less deprived than the UK’s, Germany is a good example.

    • Rhys says:
      24 Aug24 August 08:21

      Flybe’s goal isn’t to level up, is it? It’s to run a profitable regional airline.

      The government’s goal may be to level up, but they clearly aren’t offering any subsidies on the route!

      • Mike Hunt says:
        24 Aug24 August 09:44

        Levelling Up is a Team sport not just for central government.

      • TimM says:
        24 Aug24 August 09:50

        If we had an adequate train line infrastructure other than to/from London, Fly Be would not exist.

      • mutley says:
        24 Aug24 August 13:25

        Robs comment regarding levelling up and EU funding is correct, investment in northern powerhouse is now a trickle. If the government were serious, about levelling up they would start with reinstating the Sheffield to Manchester Woodhead tunnel rail route. An example of govt muddled thinking and lack of foresight (route was one of the first in the UK to be electrified in 1954 , closed to passengers in 1964 and closed completely to freight in 1981.

        • RussellH says:
          24 Aug24 August 13:54

          From what I have read about the Woodhead route, its major drawback was the fact that it had very little straight track, constant curving meaning that even though electrified it was always going to be very slow (it would have been about 55 years ago the one time I travelled on it, so remember very little).
          And the tunnels are now used for national Grid cables, which would have to be rerouted at not insignificant expense.

    • john says:
      24 Aug24 August 11:09

      Were you one of the 1,723 passengers on the route in June?! A load factor of approx 15%!

  • Paul says:
    24 Aug24 August 07:51

    I had flights booked from BHD to NCL but less than a couple of months ago they wrote cancelling them saying they didn’t have aircraft availability. Now they release a whole load of new routes?

    Seems like they were more speculating what loads would have been like, got disappointed and totally pulled it. easyJet 3 x daily sometimes to BFS is heard to beat but this a shame as the city airport is much more convenient!

    • Cuchlainn says:
      24 Aug24 August 11:22

      Absolutely correct Paul – BHD far handier for Belfast centric folk to fly from and far, far cleaner – BFS is a disgrace !

      Don’t know if Flymaybe will be able to service all these “new” flights when they can’t deliver their current schedule.

      In last 2 weeks they have cancelled a Friday teatime flight from EMA to BHD via email….. 2 hours before departure and no staff at EMA, or on the phone to assist travellers. In addition they have sub contracted flights to BHD with small 12 seater private planes – can hardly be profitable I would have thought.

      Personally, I will give them until Xmas and see if they’re still trading. Fingers crossed they are but…

  • Jan M says:
    24 Aug24 August 07:57

    Wish they came back to Cardiff! I once flew them direct to Rome.

  • JohnTh says:
    24 Aug24 August 08:05

    Shame Southampton ones starting so late in winter season – March!

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